It's kind of a trolley problem: I'm not "fine" with 480p, but also not fine with throwing away stuff that still works. That seems to mean the status quo wins until the thing stops working.
I have to disagree. 480p on the web might awful, but a well encoded DVD still looks really good
On a small screen it's not extremely bad but you lose a lot of information.
DVDs are natively 480. There isn't any more information on the disc to lose.
Would it be nice to have a 4k transfer from the original 35mm? Yes. Can you get that from the film licensees? Not necessarily.
He might have the common "mounted the TV over the fireplace" affliction which means it's so far away you can't tell the difference.
It must be a very big room and a very small TV to not tell the difference. Or bad vision.
Those of us who grew up in the analogue TV era are simply used to it.